Ollanta Humala came to power promising to effect a "great transformation" in Peruvians' lives by sharing the spoils of the country's economic boom more evenly. The oft-repeated promise of "social inclusion" has become the de facto motto of his administration, which marked its first 100 days on last Saturday.

The World Bank approved a $3bn loan for Peru last month to help President Humala's plans for anti-poverty initiatives. The bank's vice-president for Latin America, Pamela Cox, said she hoped Humala would achieve what Brazil's former leader, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, had.

The loan closely followed the launch of the development and social inclusion ministry. The new minister, Carolina Trivelli, an economist and expert on rural development, promised that not a single Peruvian would be left behind, adding that the government had increased the budget for social inclusion by half. Her inauguration was symbolically held in Cusco, a region that – despite attracting billions in tourist dollars – has one of the country's highest poverty rates (49%).

Mining is the country's economic engine, and Humala has already introduced a windfall profits tax and increased royalties for mining multinationals. Peru is the world's biggest producer of silver, second biggest producer of copper, and sixth biggest for gold. Money taken from companies making record profits from high commodity prices will fund much-needed social programmes in the largely poor Andean highlands, where extraction is often fiercely opposed. This move appears to seal the new government's resolve to change Peru's paradox of stellar economic growth and growing social unrest.

In September, Humala enshrined the right of indigenous communities to be consulted over mining, oil-drilling or logging on their territory. The law – repeatedly rejected by his predecessor, Alan García, as a stumbling block to investment – brings Peru in line with the UN Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention of 1989 and, according to legal experts, makes it the first nation in the region to implement fully the International Labour Organisation's Convention 169 on indigenous and tribal communities.

In a 2007 newspaper article, García – drawing on the "dog in the manger" trope – criticised rural populations who stood in the way of investment projects.

"It was a declaration of war by large-scale investment against smallholders, arguing they needed to be pushed aside as they were standing in the way of precious resources", says Carlos Monge, a research associate at Peru's Centre for the Study and Promotion of Development.

Now, the agenda has changed and the demand for social inclusion has become the centrepiece of national policy.

Existing social programmes are likely to be overhauled. Peru's national auditor, Fuad Khoury, said 24 such programmes, with an annual budget of 7.6bn soles ($2.8bn), were afflicted by mismanagement and corruption.

The national food assistance programme, Pronaa, is also expected to be restructured after three children died from being poisoned by insecticide-contaminated food handouts in Cajamarca, in the north.

But Monge, who is also the Latin America co-ordinator for the Revenue Watch Institute, an extractive industry watchdog, says the real reform needs to be in the finance and agriculture ministries. "Social programmes can make a difference, but if you continue to be a poor peasant who can't sell his potatoes because the market is swamped with imported wheat, then they have not succeeded," he said.

"We need to make sure peasants integrate successfully into the market – that will be the day a peasant makes a decent living and doesn't need a government handout … Those in government should be waking up every morning asking themselves: 'How can we do that, how can we improve their lives'?"

Until that happens, cash-transfer social programmes, along with plans to increase the minimum wage and grant a small pension to all Peruvians over the age of 65, will need to be funded by increasing levels of foreign investment from mining and energy companies. Minerals account for more than 60% of exports, and the energy and mines ministry estimates investment of $50.7bn in the sector over the next decade.

While Humala's government is working on a new institutional framework for the extractive industry, his promise of social integration relies heavily on that continued investment, which in turn depends on high prices for commodities. A fall in prices could dramatically change the country's fortunes.

Meanwhile, those seen to stand in the way of that investment appear to have been quickly dispatched. Raquel Yrigoyen, the former president of Peru's Institute for the Development of Andean, Amazonian and Afro-Peruvian Peoples, said she was sacked the day after she went before congress to reverse a decision that allowed the Argentinian company Pluspetrol to expand a gas concession into a reserve for uncontacted tribes.

Humala's government will encounter the same issues as those faced by Bolivia's Evo Morales. For example, the Bolivian president, who enshrined indigenous rights in his country's constitution, was forced to bow to protesters who campaigned against building a highway through indigenous park land. By empowering indigenous people, "progressive" Latin American governments have made it more likely they will object to lucrative extractive or infrastructure projects on their territory.

For now, polls show Humala enjoys an approval rating of more than 60%, but the honeymoon period won't last forever.

"If we can get the balance right between bringing rural people out of poverty and maintaining economic growth, then we will have the conditions for great change," says Monge. "We have to make sure 'social inclusion' doesn't become an empty cliche."